An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) by John Evelyn
page 48 of 61 (78%)
page 48 of 61 (78%)
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measure which is assign'd me, would be too narrow but to mention briefly
those your private and interiour perfections which crown your Majesties Person, and dazle our eyes more then the bright purple which this day invests you. To give instance in some; you are an excellent Master to your Domesticks. Their Lives, Conversations and Merits as well as Names, and Faces, are known to your Majesty as the Companions of _Cæsar_ were: Honour is safe under your Banner, and the Court so well regulated, that there is no need of _Censors_ to inspect Mens Manners; _vita principis pro censura est_. He who knowes that every body eyes, speaks and writes of him, cannot in prudence, or think, or act things unworthy and abject: You Sir direct all your objects and motions so, as may recommend you to posterity; and even burn with desires of immortality, so as Histories may relate the Truth without fear or adulation. How happy then those Servants of yours, whose fidelity and Industry is known to your Majesty, not from the interpretation and reports of others, but your own experience! So as you Reward as well with Judgment, as Bounty; and verily that is true Beneficence to place your Recompense as well equally as freely: Most other Virtues are competent to the rest of Men; Beneficence only to a Prince, as his most Essential property, and the noblest ingredient of his _Elogy_. Hence that great Saint, as well as Courtier and Prelate has directed, _Si quis Principem laudare vellet, nihil illi adeo decorum adscriberet quam Magnificentiam_; [SN: _S. Chrysost._] and _Criticks_ observe, that where the wise King _Solomon_ sayes, _Multi colunt personam Principis_, the _Hebrew_ version reads it, _personam Benefici_, as importing both; and in that of his Who was greater then _Solomon_, _Qui dominantur eorum Benefici vocantur_, the _Chaldy_ turnes, _Principes vocantur_, as if by a convertible figure, He could not be a Prince who were not Beneficent; nor he that is truly Beneficent, unworthy of that Title. I remember 'tis somewhere said of _Saul_ that he |
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